


Even A Fool Knows When It's Gold

by perfectlystill



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Infidelity, Non-Linear Narrative, Other, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Past Drug Addiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2019-01-29 05:00:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12623796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfectlystill/pseuds/perfectlystill
Summary: But ever since the first time she slept with Alaska, there’s been a tension hanging over them. Instead of resolving something, it created something.She doesn’t know what to do with that.Katya, Alaska, and all the wrong things Katya doesn't know what to do with.





	Even A Fool Knows When It's Gold

**Author's Note:**

> Mentions of drugs, alcohol, addiction and mental illness, but none of it is seriously explored. There's an offensive joke about 9/11 taken from something Katya's said, and a flippant comment about committing suicide. Title from Frank Ocean's "Pyrite (Fool's Gold)."

“Why do you do it?” Trixie asks. Her voice is soft like she’s pretending to be nice, but her face is all stank. 

“You know how I used drugs and alcohol to boost my self-esteem?” Katya asks. 

Trixie nods.

“Well, when I got sober, my smoking increased to deal with the withdrawal.” Katya shrugs. “It’s like that.”

Trixie’s eyes narrow. “Alaska’s like a cigarette you smoke to keep from using?”

“Sure. But in this metaphor the drugs aren’t meth and vodka.” Her explanation didn’t come out right. “Like a vice.”

“In this metaphor, what are the drugs?” Trixie asks. 

Katya shrugs again. That’s a good question. 

 

 

Katya spots Alaska at the side of the stage as she's thanking the crowd between her numbers, stupid red hat plopped on Alaska’s head. Katya’s jaw works uselessly for a second, and she's sure someone caught the way her pupils dilated on video. At an unflattering angle, obviously. Not that she has any particularly flattering one, but she digresses. 

Turning back to the crowd, a few drunk people scream their love and adoration, but most of them remain silent, hanging onto her every breath. It's absurd, and they shouldn't love her as much as they do, but she feeds off the attention, likes the way it seeps into the makeup and the outfits before getting peeled away with the tape and the bobby pins. 

"Surprise!" she screeches. Feedback from the mic echoes around the club. "Snakes on a plane! Rats on a zipline! Crocodiles on a jetski? No. That's too real." 

A smattering of laughter and a lot of screaming. 

Katya knows what she said didn't make much sense, but she's known for non-sequitur, and she's learned that people like her enough to find just about anything she says hysterical. "This next song is dedicated to my one true love," she says, pausing for more screams and hoarse shouts about Trixie. "Trixie Mattel! Just kidding, it's Norma Desmond. "

She catches Alaska's eye and winks as the opening to "Dancing Queen" floods the speakers. 

It's hard to make out Alaska’s expression under the brim of her hat, but she claps, head tilting back with a laugh. 

It makes something in Katya's chest swell, and she returns her attention to the crowd, focusing on releasing all the remaining energy in her body onto them. Like cum. Ba dum tss. 

 

 

"You bitch," Katya says, shoving Alaska's shoulder. 

"Good to see you, too," Alaska drawls, stumbling into a shove back. "Whore."

"Cunt." Katya smiles. 

Alaska splays a hand over her heart and tilts her head, a softness to the purse of her lips. "You flatter me."

"I didn't know you'd be here."

"Neither did I."

"Guess you had nothing better to do." Katya flutters her eyelashes and smooths some hair out of her face. 

Alaska scoffs. "My image rehabilitater sent me."

"I knew the unmistakable scent of threatened obscurity and charity work lingered around you." She makes a show of sniffing Alaska, bending to get at her armpits, and imagines herself like a pig in heat. If Alaska were Trixie, Katya would say the last part aloud, but Alaska is not Trixie, and as Katya watches the way laugh lines begin to crinkle around Alaska’s eyes, she’s very aware of that. 

When Alaska gives herself to the laugh, Katya can't help but join in. Making Alaska laugh is neither difficult nor easy once she decides she likes you. She has a good sense of humor, sharp and acerbic, but not arrogant. She'll laugh at the easiest, most obvious joke if it tickles her fancy. She'll laugh at just about anything that surprises her, and Katya tries her best to do that, because she loves surprising people. 

She loves surprising Alaska. 

It's sort of her thing. 

Except well, Alaska's here tonight. 

And that's a surprise. 

“How’d I do?” Katya asks before taking the bottle of water one of the home girls offers her. Katya thanks the queen before she scoots toward the stage, relishes the crackle when she twists the water's lid, cap separating from the neck. 

“Good.”

“Good?” She raises an eyebrow, leading Alaska toward the dressing room and her station at the back. 

Alaska adopts a slower voice with extra vocal fry: “Great. Amazing. Fantastic. Perfect. Beautiful--”

“Linda Evangelista. Stoned these tights,” Katya finishes, laughing. 

“You’re smiling!” Alaska says, words overlapping with Katya’s. “Wait, Linda stoned those tights?”

Katya’s tights aren’t stone. 

It’s neither here nor there. 

“Yes, Barbara. She’s a close personal friend.” 

“Linda _and_ Barbara?” Alaska asks, laugh coating her throat, eyes going wide and bright. 

“I’ve got an en- _tour_ -age,” Katya drawls. “Hey! You killed it tonight. I’m a corpse bleeding out from the inside,” she tells one of the girls she passes by, tapping her shoulder. Katya thinks her name is Tessa Stickler. She’s never met her before, but she had loved her immediately. 

“Thanks?” Tessa eyes Katya and Alaska, voice light and pleased, but face scrunched a bit in confusion. “You too.”

“See you around,” Katya says, twisting to get by the chairs pulled out from various vanities, grunting like it’s more difficult than it actually is. 

She hears Alaska say “hi” to Tessa. 

Katya unscrews her water, takes a swig, and reaches her own, temporary station. It’s in the same room as the other girls, but all the way in the back, removed. There’s a black curtain she could pull across to separate herself. She doesn’t, and she wouldn’t begrudge a queen who would, but she also thinks it’s a bit high and mighty when competing on a TV show doesn’t actually make you better than anyone. 

Katya turns, sees Alaska finishing a chat with Tessa, Tessa leaning forward and up, fixated on Alaska, who manages to look impossibly even taller standing while the other queen sits. 

Katya pulls out her chair and plops down, staring at her own face. She likes her brows even though she arched them more than she usually does. A patch of skin under her right jaw isn’t as blended as it should be, but her red lipstick’s stuck in place. She leans closer, finds a hair's width of smear under her bottom lip from when she kissed that girl up front. Not bad at all. 

“Boo,” Alaska hisses, dropping a palm to the edge of the vanity and leaning down. 

“How’s Tessa?”

“I told her to drop the ‘A’ and add cancer to the end of her name.”

“Tess Stickler Cancer,” Kayta says, the end of the name a screaming laugh that goes silent, her mouth open and body careening back and then forward, hands on her knees. 

“I don’t know why she stopped at testicular,” Alaska offers.

Katya drops her voice, allows it to fake boom around them: “Welcome to stage four, Tess Stickler Cancer!”

One of her favorite things about Alaska is how much she loves drag and how much she loves other people’s drag: the names, the outfits, the makeup, the humor and entertainment, a political statement or crude joke. She respects the artform, and she loves the culture, hasn’t ever seemed to tire of it. It exhausts some queens -- sometimes Katya wants to lie prostrate on stage and do nothing, but even that’s more physical than the mental and emotional exhaustion Trixie’s described with her art. But never Alaska, at least not in the same way. Her heart and soul are always in it. 

Katya’s laughing at Alaska rapping “Tessi Cancer,” when Alaska exhales, says: “You really were good tonight.”

“Thanks.” Katya doesn’t look up to Alaska in the reverential, fangirl, nay, fanwoman way she used to before _All Stars 2_ , but it’s still nice to get her approval. It makes Katya smile a small thing that has no teeth, that probably looks insincere and weird on her face. 

“What are you getting up to tonight?”

Katya pulls out a makeup wipe. “I don’t know. You.”

“Ooooh,” Alaska moans in that stupid, silly way of hers that Katya loves. “Can’t. I ate beans like an hour ago.”

“You could still blow me,” Katya deadpans. 

Alaska laughs, face scrunched up, hat tilting back on her head. 

 

 

They do end up at Katya’s place, watching _Friends_ reruns on television until they turn into _Saved by the Bell_.

“I always wanted to be Kelly,” Katya says, gulping down the last bit of soda from her bottle and setting it on the endtable.

“Really?” Alaska’s curled next to her on the sofa, knees digging into her thigh. Alaska is so thin in a way Katya normally doesn’t go for, reminds her too much of herself, but rules are meant to be broken and all that. 

Katya might also be a narcissist. She hasn’t ruled it out. 

“I mean, I was more interested in kissing Slater than Zach, but Zach has that personality, you know?”

“You liked Zach for his personality?” Alaska asks, a fond giggle in her throat that makes Katya feel hazy, like ASMR or whatever. 

“I liked Screech for his personality.”

Alaska shifts, and Katya feels their arms rub together. “Fucking weirdo.”

“Takes one to know one.” 

Katya’s voice comes out in a whisper, and her eyes droop. She fights against a yawn, can see the sun beginning to rise through the curtains. Alaska is warm against her, leaning their bodies together, and it’s too nice and too intimate. 

If it were almost anyone else, it wouldn’t be, and if it were almost any other pair of queens she passed backstage or on a bus, Katya wouldn’t even blink. But ever since the first time she slept with Alaska, there’s been a tension hanging over them. Instead of resolving something, it created something. 

She doesn’t know what to do with that. 

 

 

They fall asleep on the sofa. 

Katya wakes up slumped over sideways, Alaska’s head on her chest and body leaning heavily into her legs. An allergy commercial plays on TV. 

She’s careful as she gets up to pee, hissing as she puts pressure on her asleep foot.

When she re-enters the living room, Alaska’s unfurled a little on the sofa, her knees still bent, hair a mess from her hat and Katya’s fingers. Katya watches Alaska’s eyes dart behind her lids, wonders what she thinks about, wonders what it’d be like to dive into her brain and see the genius there. 

Pulling a blanket off her bed, Katya spreads it over Alaska, fingers lingering against her shoulder. 

She sleeps in her own bed. 

Katya isn’t sure if that’s responsible, or if it’s just admitting to the fucked up mess they create when they’re together. 

 

 

They’re out to lunch, all the other girls still sleeping off their hangovers. 

The sun is bright, streaming into the little deli they found a few blocks from the hotel. Alaska’s got sprouts in her salad, and Katya made a comment about how she doesn’t eat grass. Alaska said that made sense, because she’s “not a fancy cow. Just a regular, slutty cow.”

“The first time I met Kim,” Alaska starts, dragging a piece of spinach around the rim of her bowl, “I asked for an autograph. So she goes to her desk, pulls a photo of herself and Trixie off the mirror, and hands it to me.”

“Sure,” Katya offers when Alaska pauses. 

“Unsigned.”

“You didn’t pay for the merch.”

“I had a marker, and she wanted me to sign the picture for her.”

Katya smirks. “She thought you were offering to give her an autograph. God, her ego’s ballooned since then.”

Alaska snorts, lighthearted and soft. “And she wanted me to sign a picture of herself.”

“In her defense, I’d sign pictures of her. We’re practically twins.” Katya bats her eyes. 

“You’re more Asian than Manila,” Alaska drawls. 

“Racist.” Katya bites on her lip so she doesn’t howl. There’s an old couple eating lunch at the table next to them, and they’ve already asked her to be quiet twice. 

“Do you remember the first time we met?” Alaska asks, looking up to recall the memory herself.

“Yes, but I don’t like to talk about it.”

Alaska narrows her eyes. “Why not?”

“Because I ridiculously embarrassed myself, which isn’t uncommon, but also because if you don’t remember, that’s one embarrassing moment I can erase from my history without relapsing.”

“Come on, now you have to tell me!” Alaska takes a bite of salad and sets her fork down, leaning closer, eyebrows furrowing in a way that hints toward frustration. Alaska is stubborn as anything, and Katya knows she’ll pester her throughout lunch, the rest of the night, waiting in the airport tonight before the tour flies to Canada, on the plane, tomorrow. Probably forever. 

“You were wasted,” Katya says. 

Alaska’s mouth tilts down. “That bad, huh?”

“I mean, yeah.” Katya takes a sip of water. “You might actually prefer that I don’t tell you.”

“You’re not getting out of this one that easy.”

Katya sighs. “It was before season five, and I went down to Pittsburg to see your show.”

“Did I accidentally shit myself on stage?”

“No, that part was definitely on purpose.” Katya can’t help but crack a smile, wheezing when Alaska rolls her eyes and kicks at her under the table. “You were incredible, and I was in awe. Grotesque and irreverent and controversial. Like, truly disgusting.”

Alaska blinks. “We’re discussing that later.”

“I stumbled into you at the bar after like a stalker, and I was all decked out in my frizziest wig, and you told me I looked like a dead dandelion.”

“I’m sure you did,” Alaska says, a smile twitching around her mouth. 

“Oh, totally. The best compliment. And then you let me buy you a drink.”

“Okay,” Alaska says, drawing the word out until it’s eleven syllables. 

“We had a nice little chat where I gushed at you and you told me you couldn’t understand what I was saying. And then I ripped your dress.”

“You what?” 

“You told me I owed you ten dollars.” Katya shakes her head.

Alaska laughs. “I’m sure I doubled the price.”

“It was a piece of fabric safety pinned together.”

Alaska howls, and Katya gets a kick out of the old man at the table next to them saying “this is why people hate the gays” loud enough for them to hear. 

“I apologized, and then asked for a picture, and you told me ‘No.’ Not until you got the money, and I actually fucking gave you a twenty.”

“Shit,” Alaska laughs. “I was a hoot.”

“A hoot!” Katya mocks, as high and gay as she can make herself sound. “I didn’t even get the stupid picture.”

“We can take one now,” Alaska says, eyes dancing with mirth. “That’s not that bad.”

“You don’t get it.” Katya shakes her head. “You weren’t there.”

She remembers the anxiety that beat against her ribcage, the fear that Alaska would never let her into Blue Moon again, that she’d be banned for life. She remembers the panic that made her lungs shallow and her throat close up, feeling like she would drown in her own sweat. All her thoughts were irrational, converging until she got high in a shitty motel that smelled like a combination of lemon cleaner and unwashed ass. 

But she doesn’t want to tell Alaska that. 

“You’re right,” Alaska agrees, picking up her fork. “The second time was better.”

“It was,” Katya agrees. “Anyway, so I just remembered you owe me twenty dollars.”

Alaska throws her head back, adam’s apple bobbing in her throat as she cackles.

The old man mutters: “At least they’re not playing footsie.”

 

 

Katya wakes up naked and shivering in Alaska’s hotel room, because some time after they fell asleep, Alaska managed to steal all the sheets. Katya tugs the comforter out from under Alaska’s body, squeezing her eyes shut and ignoring the groan of protest Alaska gives as she snuggles closer. 

“You’re cold,” Alaska mutters, foot pressing against Katya’s shin in a weak attempt to push her away. In the morning her voice is hoarse and scratchy, deeper than it is when she’s fully awake and halfway through her first cup of tea. It goes straight to Katya’s dick. 

“Your fault.”

“Lies,” Alaska says.

Katya gloms on. “You could warm me up.”

“You can’t afford it,” Alaska says, a smile flirting in the tilt of her mouth.

“Hey, I’m the only prostitute here.” Katya burrows her face against Alaska, nipping where her throat curves into her neck. 

“That’s not fair,” Alaska whines, shifting and pulling her arm out from under her side, splaying her palm against Katya’s chest. “You know I have the cash.”

“I already stole it from your purse.” Katya grins against her shoulder. 

“Well, in that case,” Alaska whispers, eyes fluttering open and fingertips marching down Katya’s chest in a zigzag pattern. “Might as well get my money’s worth.”

 

 

After, Alaska leans over, opening the nightstand drawer and pulling out the room service offerings. “How do you feel about seasonal fruits and berries?”

“I just had your dick in my mouth, so I think I’ve made my thoughts pretty clear.”

Alaska huffs, smacking Katya gently. “You’re insufferable.”

“Honestly, as long as I get some coffee, it’s good.”

“Coffee is seven dollars.”

“The caffeine headache will be worth it.”

They order fruit and toast, and Katya scrolls through Twitter while Alaska showers. 

They haven’t seen each other in four months, their bookings failing to align in both location and time. They haven’t spoken in over a month, aside from excitement about their New York shows both being the same weekend, this weekend. 

Katya didn’t miss Alaska, not explicitly. 

She always pulls more than her fair share of road trade. And she always has Trixie to Facetime and force herself on. Her fans are always up to watch her livestream walking down the street, or waxing poetic about restaurants that are open 24 hours, or contemplating the meaning of life. 

But still, Katya finds there’s something nice about being with someone familiar. She likes that she knows Alaska loses it a little when she bites the soft underside of her knee, and she likes remembering the way Alaska kisses, only to find it’s even better than her brain recalled, because you never really can trust that thing. She didn’t have to ask Alaska to pinch her nipple when she was getting close, or worry that they wouldn’t be compatible. Katya’s had sex with a lot of men, and incompatible sex isn’t necessarily awful, but it’s not good, either. It always leads to her feeling unsatisfied and finding somewhere to smoke through half a pack of cigarettes. 

Speaking of which, or, thinking of which: “Laska! I’m gonna go smoke on the balcony.”

“What if the food comes?”

“I’ll leave the screen open,” Katya says, throwing her phone onto the bed and standing. 

“Then there’ll be smoke in the room!”

Katya rummages through her luggage, pulling out the new pack she bought last night. “Not a lot.”

“If I get fined, I’m sending you the bill.”

“I’ll just tip well.” Katya rolls her eyes. She doubts the waiter is going to run downstairs to tattle on her. 

“Whatever!” Alaska huffs.

It’s warm for a fall day in the city, and Katya leans over the rail, watching the hustle and bustle. She takes a moment to be grateful for her life, for the chance to be here right now. Her brain naturally veers to the bad, but one of her therapists once told her to remember the good stuff. She doesn’t make lists or any of that nerd shit, but during her morning smoke, she tries to greet the day with, if not positivity, neutrality. 

Katya hits the pack against her palm before fishing out one cigarette and lighting it. The first pull settles nicely in her chest, and with the first exhale the tension in her shoulders unfurls. The day is bright but not sunny, and she likes that. She doesn’t have to squint. 

She’s halfway through her cigarette when she hears the screen open, feels Alaska wrap her arms around her waist and rest her chin on her shoulder. “How long does it take to wash some berries and toast some bread?”

Katya shrugs, likes how Alaska’s fingers tighten, her body following the motion. “Maybe they’re waiting until I’m done.” She waves the cigarette obnoxiously in Alaska’s face. “You want some?”

“Not a habit I’m looking to fall back into.”

“Okay.” Katya takes one more pull and then flicks the cherry, shoving the nub back into the box for later.

She pulls out her phone and reads Alaska today’s headlines. She listens to Alaska’s thoughts about how congress is filled with a bunch of cowardly warts who aren’t getting anything done because then they don’t have to answer to people either way, and how the weather today might be nice, but global warming will probably kill her faster than the secondhand smoke she just inhaled. 

They head inside when the food finally shows up, setting it up carefully in the middle of the bed.

“Do you ever wonder what you’ll do when this is all over?” Katya asks. 

“When what’s over?” Alaska digs around the cantaloupe so she can grab a cube of honeydew. 

“Your drag career.”

“No,” Alaska says, popping the melon into her mouth and chewing thoughtfully. “I mean, I’ll probably stop traveling so much when I’m decrepit like Raja, but I don’t think I’ll ever stop doing drag until I’m physically dying. Even if I’m not making money off it. I was broke once. I survived.”

“Yeah.” Katya chews on her bottom lip. “Me too.”

“I know.” Alaska looks at her with a seriousness that makes Katya sit up straighter. “You’re like me that way.”

“A rotted cunt?”

“Yeah,” Alaska laughs. “It’s in your bones. It’s like, with some girls who have been doing this a long time, you can tell they don’t love it anymore. At least not how they used to.”

“I met a queen in Texas a few weeks ago who told me if she doesn’t get cast on _Drag Race_ by the time she’s thirty, she’s quitting and becoming an accountant. And I was like, shit, am I a grandma? Would I rather have my fans call me Grandma?” 

“Trixie’s like that,” Alaska says. 

“A grandma?” Katya asks, but she feels like she should be offended on her best friend’s behalf. 

It must show on her face, because Alaska rolls her eyes and clarifies: “It’s not bad. She just wants to get married and settle down. Be a stay-at-home mom to two and a half kids.”

Katya nods. “Kids are gross.”

“You’ll love her kids.”

“Yeah.” 

Katya can picture it: Trixie living in some neighborhood outside LA, a white picket fence and a gaggle of mini Trixie’s to raise. Trixie’s the kind of person who hates all children, but she’ll love her own more than Katya will ever love anything. She’ll yell at any kid who dares to look at them wrong and ask their teacher why they were boring enough for her children to be talking in class in the first place. Overprotective and annoying and awful. 

And Katya will get to be the cool aunt who teaches them basic gymnastics and sneaks them weed. It’s a nice future, even if thinking about it too much marrs the edges of the image with loneliness and restlessness. 

“You don’t want that?” Katya asks, dipping the corner of her toast directly into the butter continental and scooping it out like salsa on a chip. 

“God, no,” Alaska says. “I’m too selfish and immature for that.”

And like a sign from the God whose name Alaska just used in vain, a God Katya really doesn’t believe in, by the way, Alaska’s phone rings: _My boyfriend’s back, and you’re gonna be in trouble, hey la, hey la, day la_.

“Who’s got that ringtone?” Kayta asks.

Alaska bends over, pulling on the sheets to move her cell into reach. “Drew.”

“Ah, yes, Drew, of the house of Nancy or Berrymore?” Katya pops the rest of her toast into her mouth and chews. 

“My stupid ass boyfriend. But his ass is anything but stupid.”

“Ah,” Katya sighs. 

The Angels croon _You’ve been spreading lies that I was untrue_ right before Alaska picks up. 

Katya laughs so hard she has to spit the chewed up bread into a napkin to make sure she doesn’t choke. 

“Hey,” Alaska greets before pausing to listen. “I ended up leaving the club earlier than I thought, super exhausted. Couldn’t even finish an episode of _House Hunters_.” A longer pause. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m late to meet Nick for an early lunch, so I’ll call you tonight?” She hums, chewing on her bottom lip. “Yeah, I’ll text you soon. Okay, yeah. Miss you, too. Bye.”

“That’s going well,” Katya says. 

Alaska throws the last piece of toast at her, crumbs scattering over the sheets, and Katya laughs like a banshee. 

Goddamn fucking shit. 

 

 

Alaska is a cheater.

Katya knows that. 

Everybody knows.

She cheated on Sharon, she cheated on the guy after Sharon, and she probably cheated on the guy after that. It's hard to keep track, especially when she's private about her relationships. She shares details with her friends, and Katya knows Alaska considers her a friend, but they're both busy. It's easier to remember to Facetime her after they've shared a gig, or when Alaska's just done something particularly jaw-dropping during a performance that Twitter won't let her miss. And even then, Alaska is good for a laugh, a discussion about drag, a _Golden Girls_ quote-off that Katya loses within seconds, but not so much deep conversations about her love life.

Sometimes they indulge a bit. 

Most times they don't. 

Katya thinks that's fair enough. 

She wouldn't want to discuss her current boyfriend with a person she cheated on her last boyfriend with, either. 

 

 

The first time she sleeps with Alaska, it’s after _All Stars 2_ , and Alaska is most definitely single and emotionally unavailable. Which is exactly the kind of person Katya likes to fuck, because she is often single and emotionally unavailable herself. 

Alaska’s a bit tipsy, but not anywhere near drunk, and Katya doesn’t kiss her on the mouth because she hasn’t brushed her teeth. It’s fine, because she kisses her everywhere else, and because Alaska keeps letting out soft, breathy groans that are more obscene than any porn Katya’s ever watched. 

Alaska leaves a hickey on Katya’s hip, like they’re frisky high school kids, and begs Katya to eat her out, and Katya’s pretty sure she had this fantasy multiple times while season five was airing.

“Thanks,” Alaska says after, a sheen of sweat still coating her skin. 

“No, thank _you_ ,” Katya replies. “I needed a new, non-hairy ass for my spank bank.”

“Aw,” Alaska coos, brushing her hair back. “That’s the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me.”

“It’s what I’m most known for. Other than mental illness and rabies.”

“I’ll take snakes any day,” Alaska laughs, nice and warm. 

“Imagine if you had ophidiophobia.” Katya mouth drops open. “Oh my god, you’d be afraid of yourself! You’d never be able to look in a mirror or at a clear body of water.”

Alaska’s laugh has faded into a soft smile, and Katya has never seen her like this before: satiated and open, friendly in a way that feels honest and raw. She knows what it’s like to have Alaska at her mercy now, and instead of it terrifying Alaska, Alaska had enjoyed it. Katya thinks it’s better than if she had won that lip sync. This is the good kind of vulnerability, something that endears her to Alaska instead of something that annoys her. 

In some ways, this is the Alaska she always hoped to know.

Not the sex stuff, which was amazing, but the closeness. 

“When you shed your skin, do you recognize yourself in the mirror?” Katya asks, and it sounds like another snake joke, but it’s not. 

“Sometimes.” Alaska yawns, and it makes Katya sympathy yawn. There’s a hint of faded eyeliner under Alaska’s lashes that she must have been too lazy to get all the way off, and Katya didn’t think there was anything Alaska ever did halfway, or ninety-nine percent, as the case may be. Katya wants to run her finger over the smudges, lick them away. 

Maybe she’s more tired than she thought. 

“This whole thing has forced me to be more comfortable with who I am, even the worst parts of myself.”

“You don’t deserve it, you know,” Katya says. “I mean, you were a fucking brat, but the irony of all them throwing hissy fits because you threw one?”

“I know.” Alaska’s mouth tilts up, but it’s a little sad.

Katya feels her heart clench. She ignores it, because the idea of thinking about it makes her stomach knot. “I need an animal to paste onto shirts.”

“Oh,” Alaska whispers. “Cow is too obvious.”

“Donkey, too.”

“Some type of bird with that beak of yours.”

“Hey!” Katya scoffs, fake-affronted. “I have never felt self-conscious of my nostrils until now. You couldn’t just come for something I already know about, like my receding hairline?”

“Bald eagle,” Alaska says, eyes gleaming and wide.

“Fuck off, Brenda.” Katya leans forward to shove Alaska onto her back.

“What,” Alaska drawls, rolling back towards Katya, voice going full-tilt Alaska. “They’re regal. Everyone who says you were robbed would agree.”

“You earned it,” Katya says. “Hell, even I would have given it to you. And I needed those dollas, sis. You couldn’t have offered me ten grand via Paypal, too?”

Alaska rolls her eyes, rolls closer again. Katya can feel her breath on her chin, the alcohol is still there, but it’s gone stale. “I scored some really good weed.”

“Yes,” Katya blurts. “Yes, yes, yes.”

“I didn’t offer you any.”

“Bitch,” Katya says, but it’s too fond, and she finds herself biting her lip as Alaska goes to retrieve it. 

She finds herself watching the sharp wings of Alaska’s shoulder blades. 

She finds herself wanting to bite them, leave a hickey of her own. 

 

 

Katya watches all the girls file out, Trixie stopping to squeeze her hand. “You want me to hang back? Lose out on a chance to meet the love of my life? Miss an opportunity to bond with everyone? Because I’ll do it for you.”

“Go.” Katya rolls her eyes. “I’ll just jump on you at the ass crack of dawn and demand a play-by-play.”

“Can I kick you out of our room if I find a man?”

“Just leave,” Katya says, pushing Trixie toward the door, but she pulls her back, pressing a sloppy kiss to her cheek and cackling as Trixie pretends to retch and wipe it off. “Love you, whore!”

“You, too, buzzkill!”

 

 

Katya’s sipping Sprite from a plastic cup and watching _Rosemary’s Baby_ when there’s a knock on her door. “Did you lose your keycard?” she asks, pausing the film. 

“I never had one,” Alaska calls. 

“A stranger in a strange land,” Kayta says, adopting her best reporter-slash-southern drawl. “Will the elegant, simple, everyday, gorgeous, biological woman get murdered, or find something more sinister lurking behind the door?” 

“Mother,” Alaska says, her Norman Bates better than ever. 

“Mother isn’t quite herself today,” Katya laughs, pulling the door open. “What are you doing here?”

Alaska shrugs, her eyes darting back into the room. “Sharon took something and was getting handsy, so I handed her off to Chad.”

“Ah, yes.” Katya nods, stepping aside and sweeping her arm over the room behind her. “As you can see, I have also taken something and am having a wild night.”

“I don’t want to intrude,” Alaska says, all sincerity, shifting her weight on her feet and looking down. 

“I can always use the company.” 

Alaska lets herself have fun, and she takes care of the people she loves, but she’s also shifted into living in a way that’s more responsible and restrained, in a way that Katya has only really ever known her to live. She didn’t know Alaska when she was with Sharon, when she was spending every waking moment drunk, when cocaine stopped making her more friendly and made her feel like the blunt edge of a used knife, dull and useless. 

Alaska’s really too sharp for that. 

By the inward curve of her body, Katya suspects that maybe it wasn’t just Sharon, that Detox was high off her silicone ass, that Jinkx was three sheets to the wind, that Naomi had gotten lost in the crowd of men. That tonight the veil between Alaska’s own particular brand of sobriety and relapse was particularly thin, and she had to get out of there. 

“You want Sprite?”

“Water?” Alaska asks, toeing off her shoes by the end of Katya’s bed. 

Katya grabs one of the bottles from the mini fridge, tossing it to Alaska once she’s settled against a pillow on Katya’s designated bed. She laughs when Alaska flinches and holds her hands in front of her face, causing the bottle to smack against her forearms and fall against the sheets. 

“10 out of 10 for hand-eye coordination!”

“Shut up,” Alaska whines, but a smile flirts around her eyes. She looks at the paused television screen. “Where did you get a copy of my origin story?”

Katya wheezes. “Your dad.”

“Can’t trust you to not fuck anyone’s dad, huh?” 

“You can take a slut out of the dad, but you can’t take the dad out of the slut.”

Alaska’s forehead crinkles, her eyebrows sloping inward, mouth pursed in confusion. “You can’t change a slut’s spots. Because it’s--”

“Herpes!” Katya cuts her off, falling face forward onto the mattress, feet dangling over the side of the bed.

“A rash not a herpes sore,” Alaska corrects, voice light, like whatever was distressing her is already starting to fade away. 

Katya offers to start the movie over, but Alaska waves her off because she’s seen the film many times. “And besides, it’s getting late.”

Alaska talks during the movie, which Katya would normally find annoying, but she’s also seen it many times, and Alaska’s commentary is insanely dumb and incredibly witty, all at once. It allows Katya to be more present in the moment, eyes open even as they begin to ache with want of sleep. Alaska doesn’t complain about Katya using each bout of laughter to shift closer to her, even though it’s transparent, a straight boy coughing and dropping his hand onto his girlfriend’s breast. 

As Rosemary cradles her baby and the credits begin to roll, Alaska asks: “What are the moral ramifications of watching this?”

“We’re part of a cult and have sold our souls to Satan.”

Alaska smacks her gently, and Katya uses it as an opportunity to drop her head against Alaska’s bony shoulder. “No, the Polanski of it all.”

“Well,” Katya begins, wetting her lips. “The youths on the internet would call us problematic, be upset at me for the next six hours and rally against you for the next six months.”

Alaska’s huff sounds equal parts annoyed and endeared. “I’m serious. I want to know.”

Katya lifts her head. Alaska does not make a good pillow. “I bought this movie like 18 years ago, I don’t think actually watching it from time to time is an endorsement of Polanski. I do and say a lot of shitty things, and I never apologize for them, but I think this one is relatively okay.”

“You should never apologize for anything,” Alaska says.

“Right.” Katya shuts the television off before sliding down the bed and pulling the covers up over her shoulders. “That’s how they get you.”

“It’s a trap!” Alaska giggles, a slow, tired thing. “Anyway, thanks for tonight. I’ll just … go.”

“You don’t have to.” 

Alaska looks down at her, and Katya can see her brain working in a way Alaska is normally so good at masking. 

It starts to make spiders crawl all over Katya’s skin. “Just flip off the lights,” she says, sadness weaving through the words. Katya thinks it’s probably a mixture of exhaustion and anxiety. 

“Okay.” Alaska worries her bottom lip. 

She gets up, hovers around the end of the bed, and then, instead of turning off the lights and leaving, she flips the switch and crawls next to Katya, fluffing her pillow before settling in. 

Katya flexes her toes against the mattress, curls her fingers to keep from reaching out. 

They wake up maybe two hours later to Trixie, too loud: “I can’t believe I didn’t find anyone to hook up with, but you trapped yourself in the room and managed it.”

Alaska groans, and Katya blinks, and Trixie flips on the light on the table between the two beds. 

“You fucked Alaska!?”

“No, Jesus,” Katya whispers. “Can you stop yelling?”

Alaska leaves for her own room, and Katya rolls her eyes at the mixture of pity and disgust Trixie stares into her before throwing her hands into the air. “I can’t leave you alone for anything!” 

 

 

They share a gig in Brazil.

The crowd is completely bonkers. Louder and more enthusiastic than fans anywhere else. The feeling that washes over Katya as she scoots off stage while the host banters and introduces the next number is akin to an orgasm, toe-curling and electric and good.

“You ready?” Alaska asks.

“Never.” Katya smiles, patting her palm against the top of her hair to smooth it out. 

“If you forget the words it’s fine, I do it all the time.”

“Professional fish!” 

Alaska laughs before motioning to Katya’s hair. “May I?”

“Yeah.”

Alaska gently tugs the wig straight, and then she takes a step back, admiring her work. “Beautiful.”

“I know.” Katya flips some hair over her shoulder, a faux cocky lilt to the words. 

One of the club’s organizers taps on their shoulders, and Katya hears the host call out their names again. The wall of sound the crowd doesn’t seem to stop producing miraculously increasing as she and Alaska move just closer to the stage, an inch out of view.

“Break a leg,” Alaska drawls. 

Katya slaps her ass, and Alaska yelps a little before grabbing the microphone and rolling her shoulders back.

The pulsing beat of “Call Your Girlfriend” floods the speakers, and Katya marches out behind Alaska, the crowd louder still. 

When Alaska starts mumbling the lyrics into the microphone, low and absurd, Katya can’t help but pull her foot behind herself, throwing her other arm out, and doing her best to bounce herself in a circle. Some messed up version of the sprinkler. 

She grimaces, throws imaginary objects at Alaska, pretends to burst into tears, and then turns around, arms crossed over her body and hands reaching to her back, abdomen wiggling in a fake makeout session. 

The crowd seems louder and louder and louder with each passing word, and Katya feels the beat of their screams mixing with the bass of the song, her body a drum being hit over and over and over. 

She spins back around: “Don’t you tell her that I give you something that you never even knew you missed.” 

Sashaying over to Alaska, Katya licks a strip up her cheek after the line about kissing, and it feels full circle. 

Katya enjoys the way Alaska exaggerates rocking her hips toward her. It’s fun and stupid and sexy, and even though Katya doesn’t normally sing live, Alaska makes it easier, and only partially because she purposefully distorts her own voice. She makes Katya feel comfortable, like she can sound off-key and gross, and it doesn’t matter as long as they’re both living in the moment, feeding off each other’s energy and putting on a show the crowd is going to remember for the rest of their lives, or maybe not at all, depending on the kind of fun they’re having.

Katya spins around during the dance break until she gets dizzy, sees Alaska blurring at the edge of her vision but not clear enough to make out what she’s doing. Katya steadies herself and touches a few hands in the front row before jumping into a split when the beat drops. All the blood and sound rushes to her ears, makes her feel lightheaded and alive. 

Alaska takes over singing as Katya gets up and gets her bearings. Then, she screams along: “Call your girlfriend!”

They end back to back, looking out at the crowd, until Katya melts to the floor, arms wrapping around Alaska’s leg, Alaska stretching out the last “new,” voice going up and down like a yo-yo. Katya wants to pretend to bite her, but she doesn’t. 

“Obrigada,” Alaska says into the mic. 

“Eu te amo, Brazil,” Katya adds, taking Alaska’s offered hand to help her up from the floor. 

Katya leaves the stage first and watches from the wings as Alaska bends toward the crowd, shaking people’s hands, thanking them for coming, and taking the few tips offered. 

There’s a reason so many people love her, Katya thinks, and watching her now, there’s no question as to why. 

 

 

Katya follows Alaska toward her kitchen. “Sorry, I’m running late. Still chopping vegetables for chili.”

There’s a large cutting board on the counter, an unplugged crockpot next to it, and a smattering of peppers diced into inches, a couple of strips uncut. There’s also a large knife that makes Katya think of serial killers and stabbing people in the stomach. 

“It’s okay, we’ll still get to the studio before Alyssa.”

“It’s okay,” Alaska’s voice fries slowly, “because it’s Alyssa.”

“Gutted! Rotted! Gila Monster!”

“Beast!” They scream simultaneously, voices low.

Katya leans against the counter and watches as Alaska’s long fingers curl around the knife, steady and sure. Alaska works slowly, running the knife through the green, red and yellow peppers, mouth straight and thin. It’s reminiscent of watching Alaska paint her face, practiced and precise.

When the edge of the counter starts to go dull against her ribs, Katya plucks a pepper.

“Heeeey,” Alaska whines. “I’m trying to make dinner.”

“Not for me.” Katya steals another pepper before standing up to look into the pot. It’s filled with beans and carrots and some tomato sauce. “You said this is supposed to be chili?”

“It’s healthy.”

“Looks disgusting.” 

Alaska points the knife at Katya. “Good thing it’s not for you.”

She laughs, can’t help the way it bubbles out of her. “You want help?”

“No, please just stand there looking pretty.”

“You think I’m pretty.” Katya clasps her hands together and kicks one leg behind her, eyelashes fluttering.

“Yeah,” Alaska snorts. “Pretty ugly.”

“You wish you had this mug.”

“You should paint me,” Alaska says, breezy, picking up her cutting board and using the back of the knife to scrape the peppers into the pot. 

“What?” Katya tilts her head. She’s not really known for being a makeup artist. She can paint herself, and she knows she looks good, passable, daytime woman and all that jazz. But she rarely tries her hand at a different face. 

“Not today, obviously.”

Katya rolls her eyes. “Obviously.”

“But some other time. Could be fun.”

“Sure,” Katya shrugs.

She watches Alaska continue making her disgusting excuse for chili, eyes darting from the clock on her phone to the sharpness of Alaska’s knuckles and the furrow of her eyebrows, expression pinched, veering on frustrated. 

“Is there anything I can do?” Katya asks seriously as Alaska stops chopping mid-onion, bottom lip pulled into her mouth, eyes closed and chin tilted up toward the ceiling. “I have no tear ducts, so I’m excellent at onions.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever.” The knife clatters against the counter and Alaska steps away, running a hand through her hair, the pieces sticking up in every direction. 

“Okay.” Katya picks the handle up gingerly and pulls the cutting board toward herself. “I didn’t know you cooked.”

“Not often,” Alaska says. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s nice when you serve vulnerability. Show the judges that versatility, darling.” 

Alaska laughs, a hoarse, sarcastic sound that makes Katya shiver. “Kenneth is coming over for dinner tonight.”

“Kenneth is the gayest name I’ve ever heard.”

This time Alaska’s laugh is much nicer, warm and wonderful. Katya has to bite down around the smile her face tries to pull itself into without her consent. Too much in a way she knows Alaska would never notice, but that she would never be able to forget. 

“Ken-neth, Kenn-e-the, kenneth,” Katya says, working the name around her mouth until it doesn’t sound like a real word, like the real name of a very real person, until her tongue feels too big.

“I think he’s going to ask me to move in with him.”

Katya has to look away from the onion to gauge Alaska’s reaction: her shoulders hiked to her ears, face flush, wringing her hands. It’s the face of someone on the witness stand who’s just told ten lies and is about to admit to the truth instead. Katya’s been watching a lot of _Law and Order_ , recently. Sue her. “And that’s a bad thing because?”

“I can’t.”

“Right.” Katya nods.

“I travel too much, and he wants a family, and I cheated on him last week in Miami.”

“You really like Florida, don’t you?” Katya jokes. Alaska glares at her. “Jesus, sorry.”

“And then he’s going to break up with me because we already had a conversation about where he wants this relationship to go.”

Katya frowns. “That sucks.” 

She’s had her heart broken before; she knows what it feels like. Her experiences range from numbness to the five stages of grief. Katya’s really good at denial and depression, anger and acceptance are harder for her to come by. 

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Alaska whispers, wrapping her arms around herself.

“Nothing’s wrong with you.”

Alaska snorts.

“Sharon really did a number on you, huh?” Katya finishes chopping the last piece of onion, her own eyes starting to sting. 

“Sharon did a lot of shit to me, but I was fucked up before I met her. She doesn’t get credit for making it impossible for me to sustain a relationship, even though I’m sure she’d love that.”

“I don’t know.” Katya shrugs before picking up the cutting board, letting the onions fall into the crockpot. A couple of pieces hit the counter, and she picks one up, squeezing it between her fingers. “If you can blame someone else for your mistakes, it usually makes you feel better. That’s why I’m friends with Trixie.”

Alaska’s mouth tips up at the corner. “How do you not cheat on people?” 

“I just,” she pauses, trying to come up with an end to that sentence that isn’t simply: I’m not a selfish asshole. She settles on: “Don’t do it.” 

Katya’s not a good role model. She says a lot of stupid, offensive shit, and she’s probably going to end up burning in hell if her family turns out to be right about all that God and religion stuff. But she does take pride in her ability to be faithful when it’s required of her. Her relationships don’t usually last as long as Alaska’s do, but when they end it’s because the guy can’t handle her schedule, or because Katya’s anxiety eats her brain, or because the spark fades when he repeatedly asks Katya to fuck him in drag four months into the relationship. 

Maybe it’s length that fucks Alaska over. 

God, there’s a dirty joke in there. A joke Alaska would normally love.

But honestly, Katya thinks the problem is Alaska. She’s afraid of getting hurt.

And Katya knows Alaska just denied it’s a byproduct of what happened with Sharon, but Katya has a hard time believing the same man who stayed in that destructive relationship, the one who would have stayed forever if Sharon hadn’t gotten the balls to end it, hasn’t fundamentally altered how she pursues and engages in romantic relationships as a result of that heartache.

So maybe she protects her heart by messing up a good thing first, creating an easy, obvious reason for why it doesn’t work out. 

Katya doesn’t know. 

She’s heard more about that from Sharon than Alaska. 

 

 

Alaska is a hopeless romantic. 

It’s one of the most contradictory things about her. 

She cheats on virtually every boyfriend she has, and yet she wants a long term, monogamous relationship. 

Katya doesn’t believe in marriage, and she doesn’t know if she believes in monogamy for herself, but she thinks she’d be better at it than Alaska. All the evidence she has points to her winning this: Alaska - 1, Katya -1. 

She thinks if Alaska were more honest about her abilities to be faithful, she’d find a nice man to come home to who wants an open relationship. She’d accept how similar she is to Willam and follow suit. Willam loves his husband. Willam is happily married. Willam sleeps around. 

But Alaska wants the stupid, heteronormative fairytale. 

Katya almost understands that, but she can’t fully wrap her mind around traditional relationship structure being one thing from straight culture that Alaska can’t seem to shake. 

 

 

“Welcome to the stage, Ginger Vitis!”

“Welcome to the stage, Pepto Bismol!” 

“Welcome to the stage, Birdy Feathers!”

“Welcome to the stage, Rigga Morris!”

“Welcome to the stage, Shut The Fuck Up!”

Alaska laughs, the first syllable hard and aggressive before it fades into a silent, open-mouthed chuckle, head tipping back and hand coming up to cover it. 

“Sorry, Trixie,” Katya says, but her smile is too wide for her apology to be genuine. 

“Whatever, I’m going to go blow my brains out,” Trixie says. Her chair scrapes against the floor as she stands up, hiking up her pantyhose before pulling down her dress. 

“Enjoy, sweetie!” Katya calls after her. “I think she hates you.”

“Most people do,” Alaska says, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “I feed off the negativity.”

“It looks like it’s the only thing you feed off of.” Katya pokes at Alaska’s stomach hard enough to feel her ribs. 

Alaska yelps, scooting backward and flailing her feet toward Katya, but all the kicks she gets in are more like the brush of a toe instead of anything hard. “You know that’s not true,” Alaska says, words dripping and eyebrows waggling. 

“That’s not fair.” Katya’s tone falls somewhere on a sliding scale between amused and turned on. She hasn’t gotten laid in over two weeks, partly her own fault, depression clouding the corners of her vision black and lonely, crawling into hotel beds without bothering to wipe off her makeup. She’s got the acne to show for it now. 

“Fair’s no fun,” Alaska smirks, lifting her feet and settling them in Katya’s lap.

Katya’s already tucked, so there’s nothing for her to play with, thank god, because Katya knows she’d try. Minx. “Are you doing the new comedy tour?”

“I think so. We’re still trying to figure out which dates work in and where I’m already booked, but I like doing those.”

“It’s always fun to have the other girls around,” Katya agrees, tapping her fingers against the arch of Alaska’s foot. 

“Until they steal your trade,” Alaska laughs. 

“I’m never forgiving Courtney. _Never_.”

“When she leasts expect it, you’re going to fuck her up.”

“I’ll get you, my pretty,” Katya says, utilizing her witchy voice: high-pitched and nasally, not entirely unlike the one Alaska uses to greet people. Katya files that thought away to sort out a read for the tour. Witches and snakes, she’s sure it’ll work. 

“Not her little dog, too!” Alaska gasps.

“I’m afraid so.” Katya’s massaging Alaska’s foot through the layers of tights, digging her thumb into the ball. “Everyone thinks she’s so innocent, but she’s really a filthy whore.”

“Who’s worse, her or Willam?” 

“Detox or Adore,” Katya answers instead.

“Where do you fall on this list?” Alaska asks, slouching further in her chair and pushing her feet forward, her toes dancing against Katya’s abdomen. 

Katya hums, tapping one finger against her chin. “Even with Willam.”

“God, all my friends are sluts,” Alaska laughs, eyes sparkling, skin around them crinkly. She’s beautiful like this, painted, eye shadow soft and glittery, lashes threatening to weigh her lids down. 

She’s always beautiful. Katya thinks she’s beautiful when she pulls the lashes off, cleans her face. She’s beautiful in the morning, face squished against a pillow. She’s beautiful, and Katya is very aware there’s a time when she didn’t think Alaska was that pretty, where her lack of beauty was something Katya found relatable and inspiring. It’s not that Alaska traded unpolished for polished, or experimental drag for glamour, it’s that Katya really knows her now, really likes her now. Just as she is. 

However she is. 

“Is it that thing where you’re friends with whores so you look less like one in comparison?” Katya asks before shrieking, hitting her palm against her vanity, causing her makeup palettes and brushes to rattle. 

“Alaska,” Trixie interrupts. “They told me to come get you, you’re on next.”

“Oh, thanks,” she says, swinging her feet onto the floor. Katya watches her dab underneath her eyes with a tissue, like she thinks she laughed hard enough to mess up her mascara. Alaska shoves her feet into her boots, pulls the pleather up her legs, and Katya is ridiculously aware of Trixie eyeing them from her chair, probably glowering, but it doesn’t stop Alaska from placing a gloved hand on Katya’s shoulder and whispering in her ear: “If you want, I’ll be your trade tonight. Courtney’s not here to steal me away.”

Alaska smacks her lips against Katya’s temple and then waves at Trixie. “Wish me luck.”

“Good luck, gal,” Trixie says, amiable and extra southern. 

When Alaska leaves, Katya twists in her chair. “Howdy do, Ma’am.” She tips an imaginary hat. 

There’s no humor in the way Trixie looks at her. Mouth pursed, eyes hard. “Shut up.”

“Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed,” Katya mutters, fidgeting with the necklace Trixie helped clasp earlier. 

“Is this some kind of self-flagellation?” Trixie asks. 

“What? The sexy kind?” 

Trixie rolls her eyes. “You’re fucking Alaska.”

Katya’s throat shrivels and dries, her heart sinks to her stomach, and she wipes her palms against her legs. “Not currently.”

“You know, I met her boyfriend in Weho a few weeks ago? He was quiet, which was weird, because Alaska normally goes for men who are louder. But he was nice. Name’s Josh.”

“Okay,” Katya manages to say around her cotton tongue.

“And then you both sit in here and have the nerve not only to give me a migraine with your inane chatter, but to go about your insane cheating ritual right in front of me.”

“I didn’t know she had a boyfriend,” Katya offers. 

“You told me this happened to you before, and yet you’re still fucking with her? Like, whoops my dick slipped into your ass again, I hope you don’t have a boyfriend this time!” Trixie raises her hands in an exaggerated shrug, mouth tilted down like a trout. She looks completely nuts, and Katya wants to laugh.

Instead, she clears her throat. “I don’t normally ask.” She feels her face flush under her foundation. Trixie can probably see the red of it seeping through. 

“So you always know it’s possible, but you’re too shitty of a person to stop.” Trixie nods. “Cool beans.”

“Like you’re a paradigm of morality.”

“Is this late onset brain damage from all that meth?” Trixie blinks, eyes wide and bugging out of her head. “Am I in _The Twilight Zone_.”

“It’s not my fault,” Katya insists. 

She doesn’t even believe that anymore, doesn’t know if she’s ever believed that, but she just wants Trixie to agree with her and stop looking more disappointed than the time she tried to go vegan, lasting one day before scarfing down an entire pizza, from Dominos, of all places, in less than five minutes. 

“You might not be equally as responsible as Alaska is, but you’re not innocent in this. You know she’s probably cheating on someone. If this was murder, you’d be an accessory.”

It’s funny. Comparing sleeping with Alaska to murder. Overdramatic and stupid. Katya gets the giggles, but clamps her hand over her mouth when Trixie tries to murder her with her eyes.

See what she did there?

“You don’t even feel remorse? Un-fucking-believable.”

“You have no right to judge me,” Katya argues. “I know all the fucked up shit you’ve done.”

“You’re right, Katya,” Trixie gives, but there’s a steel edge to her voice that makes Katya shiver. “Because I’m not even that upset about Josh, who could totally beat your ass, by the way.”

“Noted.”

“But you’re clearly super into Alaska, and there’s no way this ends without your heart torn to shreds.”

“I’m not-- not--” Katya swallows, “--super into her.”

Trixie stands up and hits Katya upside the head. “You’re an idiot. Don’t talk to me until I don’t feel like wringing your neck, or you’re willing to admit all those drugs fucked up your brain and now you think no one can judge you for being the cheater you damn well know you are, Brian.”

The use of her given name makes Katya flinch. 

Trixie’s serious as a heart attack. 

Or murder. 

Right, not the time for jokes. 

 

 

Alaska kisses her, tasting minty fresh. 

Katya kisses back. Always does. 

She’s thinking about what Trixie said, about the way Trixie had lifted her drink toward Katya, shaking her head in disappointment as she headed out of the club, Alaska in tow. 

She’s thinking about how Alaska had a drink after her set, twirling the straw in her glass and watching Katya from the side of the stage. 

She’s thinking about how gently Alaska had pulled a bobby pin Katya had missed out of her hair. Alaska’s fingers tickling her scalp and making electricity tingle down her spine. 

She’s thinking about how Alaska brushed her teeth after dropping her bags by the door and before pouncing on Katya, how she tastes like toothpaste and smells like mint, lavender, smoke and makeup wipes. 

Katya squeezes Alaska’s waist. 

Trixie was right. 

She’s super into her. 

Fuck. 

She’s super into this bony, lip-injected, cheating, whiny brat. This intelligent, talented, witty, compassionate, beautiful man. 

And it’s all fucked. 

Because Katya doesn’t really believe in marriage, but she believes in love, no matter how sustainable she does or doesn’t find it. 

And when Alaska twists her nipple, Katya groans and grinds up against her, opens her mouth wider, like she’s a wormhole she wants Alaska to crawl through. 

Trixie was right about all of it: how she feels about Alaska, and about Katya not being a good enough person to stop the train from rolling off the tracks. 

 

 

They’re huddled against each other in the airport, sharing a pair of headphones and watching last night’s episode of _Drag Race_ on Alaska’s Ipad. 

“Oh, no,” Alaska mutters, shifting and curling her feet underneath herself, the Ipad moving so Katya can’t see anything but glare. 

Alaska adjusts the screen after she’s settled, though, and Katya doesn’t complain. 

“Oh, no,” Alaska says again, wincing at the contestant who has too many ideas for Snatch Game in a way that really implies they have no ideas for Snatch Game at all. They’re flailing in front of Ru, and the shady noise has been used at least twice during the conversation. 

Katya feels that familiar fear wedged in her belly. 

“She should do Jennifer Tilly, her paint already looks how Jennifer will look in ten years,” Alaska says. 

Katya howls. “No wonder you won the reading challenge, bitch.”

“It wasn’t a read,” Alaska drawls, mouth slightly agape and hand splayed innocently over her heart. 

“Liar.” Katya shakes her head, turning back to the tablet when the ads end.

Watching the show with people is always fun, whether it’s a viewing party in a club, or smashed onto a sofa with friends, but there’s something special about watching it with Alaska. Katya’s met a lot of fans of the show, but she doesn’t think she’s ever watched it with anyone who loves it with their entire body like Alaska does. 

She literally curls over, closer to the screen, whenever something surprising or funny happens, laughing under her breath at all the jokes, even the ones that aren’t funny. She whispers advice to the contestants, and it’s disgustingly endearing.

“Kooky Kathy is so kooky, before she goes to the bathroom she snorts an ounce of cocaine,” Alaska says. 

Something about the thing she does with her voice, combined with the silence on screen as a queen answers “poops her pants,” makes Katya laugh, curling her fingers around Alaska’s forearm. “You’re better at this than they are.”

Alaska smiles, almost bashful. “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” Katya repeats in her best Tatianna.

Alaska’s smile grows wider. “I know doing other queens is so passe, but we should do a snatch game where we all impersonate each other.”

“I call myself!”

“What,” Alaska laughs, tapping on the screen to pause the episode. “You can’t do yourself.”

Katya wiggles her eyebrows. “No, you don’t understand. I have the most sparkling, wackadoodle personality of any Ru girl. Whoever got me would win.”

“Okay, let me do you.” 

“Yes, please!” Kayta squeezes Alaska’s arm before pulling back, shifting her entire body in her seat so she’s looking directly at Alaska. She sits up straight, hands folded all proper in her lap. 

Alaska runs her hands over her body, an obvious mock of Katya’s sexual prowess, as she groans: “ _UNHhhh_! Where Tracey Martin tells jokes and I whistle like an empty teapot left on the stove!” 

Kayta’s jaw drops in absolute, ludacris joy. “Kooky Kathy is so kooky, before she goes to the bathroom she blank.” 

Alaska smiles wide, purposefully trying to curl her lips back so it looks like she has more teeth, bigger teeth. “As you know, I’m a slut, so I thought, what would I do before taking a piss after sex?” She pretends to flip up a card: “ _Let Bush 9/11 her pussy._ ” 

Alaska throws her hand out like a fan, making a thwoorp sound.

Katya cackles, falls over and rolls around on the ground, her laugh a wheezing kettle. She ends up on her back, knees bent and open like a complete whore, looking up at Alaska. Katya wipes at her eyes where tears have welled. “Shit, I’m hysterical. Thanks for that.”

“You’re welcome.” Alaska smiles, tongue between her teeth. 

 

 

“What are you doing?” Alaska asks before worrying her lip between her teeth.

“Shh.” Katya takes a step back, pursing her mouth and studying Alaska’s face before going back in to blend out the cheek contour some more.

“You know I have a very long face,” Alaska says. 

“Why did you force me to do this if you don’t trust me?”

“It seemed like a fun idea, but I regret it now.”

Katya laughs, squinting a bit at her handywork. Alaska was right, her face is longer than Katya’s, and it’s narrow, and she doesn’t look awful, but she doesn’t look as correct as she normally does. She looks a bit like the Alaska from five years ago. 

“You started my eyebrows and then abandoned them to fix my contour, so I can’t wait to see how much like Frankenstein’s Monster I look.”

“I’m going for The Gill-Man, actually.”

Alaska huffs and crosses her arms over her chest. “I hate you.”

“Very mutual, darling.”

Katya decides that’s the best the contour is going to get, so she sets the brush down, picks up her eyeliner pencil, and continues outlining the wing. “You know, James St. James let me paint him, so you’re in good company.”

“And I let Courtney paint me, so you are, too.”

“Cunt.” Katya smiles and pauses to look at Alaska’s eyes. Even enough. She begins filling in the wing. 

“How would you describe your process?”

“Housewife whose husband is having an affair with his 18-year-old secretary does her makeup in the bathroom without cleaning her brushes, leaning over the sink to get to the mirror.”

“And when she goes outside to get the mail, she flirts with the mailman but doesn’t realize her mug looks different in natural lighting.”

“Exactly!” Katya shrieks. “You completely understand my eleganza.” 

“Eleganza? Really?”

“Yes, mawma!” Katya tries and fails to tongue pop, but Alaska does one for her. “Now, are we going for daywalker or nighttime glamour?”

“We’re going for whatever you want.”

“Scary.” 

Alaska’s good at letting Katya paint her. Not that Katya has a lot of people to compare her to, but she’s definitely better than Trixie. She sits still, and complains a lot, constantly asking if she looks terrible and if Katya’s going to tie a piece of corn to her wrist as a bracelet to distract from her eyebrows. Katya leans into it: “I don’t believe in blending eyeshadow, much like I don’t believe in blended families,” and “What are your thoughts on Pyramid eyebrows?” 

She always says it’s best to lower people’s expectations, so when Alaska does look in a mirror, she’ll be pleasantly surprised that she doesn’t look like Nicole Paige Brooks. Well, mostly.

Katya puts Brenda on Alaska’s head, brushing the bangs with her fingers. “Wow.”

“That bad?” Alaska grimaces.

“Worse.”

“Do I even want to look?”

“No.” 

Alaska pouts, her lips a deep red. The color’s slightly off for her skintone, but Katya likes it smeared across her mouth anyway. She thinks about Alaska coming to one of her shows and kissing her backstage, her own lipstick transferring to Alaska. 

“Noooooo,” Alaska whines, mouth parted as she looks down into the little makeup mirror she grabbed from the table. “Why do you hate me? What did I ever do to you?”

“You robbed me.”

Alaska reaches out, smacks her a few times with the back of her hand. “My forehead looks twice as big as it normally does.”

“It’s the bangs.”

“The bangs are the only thing making it look smaller!”

“Well, maybe you should talk to your parents about those genetics,” Katya says, picking up the can of Red Bull she opened and forgot to drink while she worked. 

“Have your eyebrows always been this hideous?”

“Hand to God.” Katya takes a sip of Red Bull and presses her thumb into the aluminum. “You really hate it?”

Alaska looks up at her, mouth tilting into a smile, and she nods. “I really do.”

“Let’s take a picture!”

“Okay, but you can’t post it anywhere.”

“If you don’t want any evidence of this, that’s fine.” Katya frowns, her heart sinking to her stomach.

Alaska frowns, too, forehead furrowing. “No, it’s not that. It’s just we didn’t film it, so everyone would expect a video or something.”

Katya feels like an idiot. Duh. “We can do it again.”

“Willam would sue me.”

“You just don’t want me to paint you again.” Katya arches an eyebrow.

“You caught me,” Alaska drawls, winking.

Katya doesn’t mind so much when Alaska models the makeup, getting up from her chair, setting her foot on it, elbow on her knee, chin in palm. She doesn’t mind when Alaska flutters her eyelashes and purses her lips, and she doesn’t mind when they take a selfie, Alaska annoyingly smearing red lipstick all over Katya’s cheek and nose. 

“A taste of your own medicine,” Alaska whispers. 

Fair enough.

 

 

Alaska waddles over to Tim in her mermaid dress. “Zip me up?”

“Is this how straight guys feel?” Tim asks. 

Alaska laughs, a hearty thing that Katya feels rumble in her own stomach. “Only the first time they accidentally accompany their better halves to the mall.”

“Stop erasing drag queens two-k-always,” Katya says. 

“Katya zips up all us gals,” Alaska adds.

“Because I’m a pervert,” Katya deadpans.

Alaska snorts, but it turns into a real laugh, her eyes bright and wet with it. Tim chuckles, but the sound edges toward uncomfortable. 

“Thanks,” Alaska tells him, leaning in to press a kiss to his cheek. 

It’s odd watching Alaska with her boyfriend at a gig. 

Katya keeps blinking to clear her vision, as though what’s in front of her can’t possibly be real. Alaska isn’t overly affectionate. She focuses on getting ready, securing her wig and smoothing out the wrinkles in her dress. Tim sits quietly and scrolls through his phone, but still, when he asks for a drink, Alaska hands him her water, their hands brushing, and Katya feels the phantom itch of it against her own skin. 

“Break a leg,” Tim says when Alaska heads to the stage. 

“Break both of them!” Katya calls. “And an arm!”

The silence settles heavier after that. Katya glances at Tim and then back at her own reflection. She applies another layer of lipstick before blotting it with a tissue. 

“Katya?” Tim asks, quiet and unsure.

She hums. “Correct.”

“Um, I know you’re Justin’s friend more than mine.” Understatement: she met him earlier today when the three of them got together for lunch, picked up from their hotel lobby by a nice woman who works for the club. “But can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Is he cheating on me?”

Yes.

Katya blinks again, pushes her eyelash up with her finger. 

Guilt squeezes her heart like a vice, the breath she takes sharp and cold in her chest, echoing loudly around her ears. She knew Alaska had a boyfriend last night. This time she didn’t even have ignorance as a lowly excuse. She knew, and she let Alaska blow her anyway. 

“You should talk to her about this,” Katya says. 

“I know.” He sighs, running a hand through his hair. “It’s just, my last two boyfriends cheated on me, and I don’t know if I’m being paranoid? I want to trust Justin, but I just feel like….”

It’s juvenile, but just as there’s something different in the knowing and not knowing, there’s something different in the knowing and the sitting here with Tim, a real, flesh and blood person, who’s worried about his cheating boyfriend cheating. 

Katya exhales. 

“Communication is the key to any successful relationship.”

Tim eyes her like he doesn’t quite believe it’s that simple. “Thanks … Katya?”

“Don’t thank me,” she says. “I’m not known for giving good advice.”

 

 

“Did I spit on you?” Katya asks. 

Alaska’s doubled-over, laughing. “Yes, I love it.”

Katya feels glitter sparkling inside her bones, making her shine from the inside out as Alaska pulls herself upright and smiles at her. 

“That was it,” Alaska says, turning toward the cameraperson and slicing her hand across her neck. “That’s a wrap. No other interview is going to be as good as that one.”

Katya can feel her cheeks begin to ache from how hard she’s grinning. “Why couldn’t this be the show? I’d win this.”

Alaska blinks at her, face blank: “Where’s your unt?”

“Shit,” Trixie laughs. 

Katya stares back at Alaska, smile slowly working its way onto her face. “Here, let me show you,” she says, hooking her thumb into the waistband of her tights, pulling them away from her skin. 

Alaska smirks even as she rushes forward, grabbing Katya’s hand. “Miss, this is a very serious competition and we don’t take bribes.”

“Goddammit!” Katya snaps her fingers and the six pairs of tights bite back against her hipbone. 

“It was my pleasure to be interviewed by you.” Alaska says, batting her eyelashes. 

“The pleasure was all mine.” Katya says, hand splayed over her chest. “Sincerely. I’m like one of those 13-year-old white girls who wait in a bar’s alley to meet you and give you plastic jewelry.”

Alaska snorts, a fond start to a laugh that fades somewhere in her throat. “I’ll see you there.”

She hikes her dress up a little and follows the cameraperson.

“You’ve got some drool,” Trixie says.

Katya actually wipes at the corner of her mouth. 

 

 

Katya knocks against the door jamb before leaning into the dressing room. Rock music plays from someone’s phone as Detox and Sharon dance with each other, Alaska laughing as she runs a makeup wipe across her forehead. “Hey, bitches.”

“Katya!” Detox sings, crooking a finger and beckoning her forward. “Join the party.”

Katya swivels her hips, clasping her hands above her head, and making her way toward the girls. Detox’s hands find her waist and pull her in, moving slowly. It’s soft and sensual, except for Detox’s acrylics pressing into her hips. Katya takes Detox’s hand when she offers it, lets herself be twirled like a ballerina. 

She shrieks when Detox lets go, but Sharon catches her, laugh warm in her ear. 

Katya almost forgets why she stopped by, but then the music changes: a Whitney ballad. 

“You coming out tonight?” Sharon asks, hip-checking Katya before working her wig off. 

“Actually,” she says, catching Alaska’s eye in the mirror. Her heart lodges itself in her throat, and her mind screams at her to veer off course, flashing neon signs informing her this is a no good, very bad idea. She tugs at the bedazzled jacket she wore onstage, rocks on her feet, and steels herself. “Alaska, I was wondering if we could talk later?”

“Someone’s in trouble,” Sharon sing-songs.

Alaska rolls her eyes. “I’m heading straight to the hotel after this. I’ve got an early flight out.”

“Cool. I’ll stop by if that’s okay?” Katya takes a deep breath to try to keep everyone in the room from hearing how much she actually can’t breathe.

“Okay.” Alaska raises an eyebrow in question, but Katya just waves her off, mouths: “Nothing serious.”

“You’re stealing my best fucking dance partner, bitch,” Detox says, falling into her chair. 

Alaska flips her the bird, running a new makeup wipe under her eye. 

 

 

Alaska opens the door to her hotel, wearing a shirt with her own face on it and that red baseball cap she sells. She’s pale, dark circles under her eyes. Her smile is soft and thin, and Katya almost lets herself use it as an excuse to put this conversation off for another day. 

A suitcase lies open on her bed, a pile of clothes next to it, shoes scattered around the floor. “Packing,” Alaska offers.

“When’s your flight?”

“Five.” Alaska shuts the door before maneuvering around Katya to pick up a few pairs of tights that appear to be tangled together. 

Katya pulls her phone out of her pocket. It’s just after two. She focuses on breathing in and out: it isn’t ideal, but there’s enough time. 

It isn’t ideal, but she promised Trixie. 

“When are you leaving?” she asks. 

“A car’s coming at three.”

“Yikes.” Katya walks into the room, bending down to pick up a small, sensible heel, eyes scanning the floor for its partner. 

“I’ve been in worse shape before.”

“I’m always in worse shape,” Katya says, cracking a smile. 

A companionable silence falls over them as Katya pairs up all of Alaska’s shoes, zipping them up in their bags and stuffing them into the suitcase Alaska left on the floor. Alaska folds her shirts neatly, rolling her tights up and sniffing underwear to see which bag it belongs in. It would feel domestic and intimate and _normal_ if the blood wasn’t rushing in Katya’s ears, her heart trying to exit her body before she can embarrass it. 

“What did you want to talk about?” Alaska asks, hands on her hips, eyeing the pile of black that remains by her pillow. 

“Oh, right,” Katya breathes, as though she forgot. 

Stupid. 

“Um, I like you.”

Alaska looks at her, the sun of a smile beginning behind her eyes. “I like you, too.”

“No.” Katya shakes her head. 

She didn’t plan what to say. She always says she’s better off-the-cuff. 

This time, she wishes she had planned something.

“No?” Alaska repeats, tilting her head down and frowning.

“I do like you, that’s not it,” Katya rushes to clarify. “It’s just that I _really_ like you, and we have to stop sleeping together like it’s not a problem. Because it’s definitely a problem. For me.”

“Oh.” Alaska’s mouth stays parted. “I’m single.”

Katya feels the heat rush to her face. She swallows around her swollen tongue. Shit. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s like,” Alaska starts, voice sleepy-slow. She rubs at her eye. “I like you, too, and I’m single, and we might as well give this a shot.”

“We can’t.”

“Why not?” Alaska chuckles. 

Katya moves her mouth uselessly, but she has lots of ideas: they both travel too much, jetsetting to different corners of the globe. They’re rarely in the same place at the same time. Alaska likes tea and Katya prefers to rot her bleached chompers with sugar and a dash of coffee. Alaska’s feet are always freezing even when the rest of her is warm, and she’s always nudging said freezing feet between Katya’s legs. Alaska still hasn’t painted Katya’s face even though she promised she’d do it a year ago. 

“You couldn’t be monogamous,” Katya blurts. 

Alaska frowns, face gaunt, and Katya hates herself. 

“Right,” Alaska whispers, breaking eye contact and picking up one of her bras. “You’re right. And it sucks, because this is the one relationship I can see myself not fucking up, except, you know, all I’ve done is fuck it up since it started.”

“Sorry.” Katya swallows. 

She zips closed the suitcase she packed.

She leaves. 

 

 

There’s a loud, impatient knock on her door. 

And then again, quicker raps.

Katya mumbles around her toothbrush, spitting into the sink: “I’m coming!”

She looks through the peephole, sees Alaska staring down at her pigeon toes, and Katya feels her entire body grow warm, with embarrassment and lack of resolve and how much she might just seriously hate herself. 

Fucking shit. 

Katya pulls open the door. 

“What are _your_ thoughts on monogamy?” Alaska asks, hands stuffed into the front pockets of her jeans. 

“Outdated and stupid.”

“That’s what Willam said.”

“You called Willam?” Katya asks, incredulous. 

“Yeah. You left, and I sat down and stared at the door like some heroine in a dramatic love story, and he always answers my calls.”

“Okay.”

Katya lets Alaska in.

Alaska sits down on the edge of Katya’s bed, puts her head in her hands and sighs. Katya stays standing, but her legs feel wobbly. She stretches her toes, flexes her hands by her sides. She wonders if Alaska can tell she cried by the way her voice sounds. 

“I’m not good at it. You’re right,” Alaska says. 

“What?” Katya asks. Her brain feels like it’s running faster than it ever has, but she still can’t keep up. 

“Being faithful. I’m jealous, though. I’ll tell you that.” She laughs, the sound devoid of humor. “So, it might not work. And I’ll probably annoy you. But if you want. Maybe we could work something out?”

Katya narrows her eyes. “What happened to all that true love bullshit?”

Alaska sighs, her shoulders deflating.“I think I’ve been holding onto it without really believing it. Since Sharon.”

Katya nods. 

“I’m not saying I’m sold on an open relationship. I’m not sure it’s for me. But if I’m going to try for anyone, I want to try for you.”

Her eyes are wide and blue, knuckles going white, hands clasped between her bouncing knees, and Katya isn’t sure that’s really all that romantic, but she thinks maybe she loves Alaska regardless. Maybe she loves her because that’s a really desperate and sad thing to say and not all that romantic at all, and Katya is good at desperate and sad. 

She surges forward, Alaska’s face soft between her dry hands, thumbs swiping over her cheekbones. Katya kisses her softly, chastely. She watches the twitch of a smile bloom on Alaska’s lips, and her brain cycles through a dozen pussy jokes. 

“I want to try for you, too,” she says. 

She kisses Alaska again, feels Alaska’s fingers twist themselves in her shirt. 

They have a lot to discuss. Everything isn’t magically fixed. Katya knows that.

But right now, she just wants to kiss Alaska until Nick calls about the car. She wants to help them load a trolley with Alaska’s luggage and bring it downstairs. She wants to shyly press her lips to the corner of Alaska’s mouth, hug her tight, feel the lingering kiss Alaska presses to her forehead before she climbs into the car.

She wants to let hope cascade over her.

So she does. 

 

 

Jonny holds the opera binoculars to his eyes. “Look at huh!”

Katya leans forward, staring at the monitor. A picture of Alaska replaces Bianca.

“Alaska Joanne!” Katya kicks her feet out and claps her hands together.

“Alaskaaaaa,” Jonny drawls in an adequate impression. 

“I love her,” Katya says. “She’s great. Extremely compassionate and humble. Incredibly unique and talented. Incisive and smart. I don’t think there’s any other queen with such a smart, specific point-of-view that everyone can find a-- an in, a hook to latch onto. No one can do what Alaska does.”

“You just did a show together in Brazil. What was that like?”

Katya laughs, curling her hand over her knee. “It was great. It’s always fun to perform with other girls. Alaska is very professional, but we’ve gotten very close, so it was the best time, yeah. No complaints other than the hotel put mints on the pillows instead of chocolates.” Katya breathes, remembers, and gasps: “I got to lick her onstage. She tasted like powder and paste. So, that’s a hot tip. Some insider info.”

“Oh,” Jonny coos, “Scandalous!” 

“Yeah, she’s my favorite. I love Alaska.”

 

 

When the episode goes up on Youtube, Katya’s got a show in Berlin, and Alaska’s in LA. 

She gets a text just after her first number: _Love you too Pastey DeCline. Today Tomorrow and Forever._


End file.
